Open Air

Outdoorzy.com is a place to connect with people who share your love for open air and beautiful scenery. The Web site lets you create a profile and connect to others through trip reports, blog posts and groups. Members also can add gear lists and public events to their profiles. Much like a Facebook "wall," you can communicate with members through comments on their profiles. It also provides gear reviews and links to outdoors businesses. MCT

Open air malls are gaining favor in South Florida, forcing some aging enclosed malls to add their own outdoor shopping space. A new enclosed mall has not opened in the United States since 2006 and some analysts question whether South Florida will ever see another one. Instead, developers have built a series of outdoor retail centers that shoppers have increasingly embraced. "Indoor malls are becoming dinosaurs and shoppers are seeing this," said Debra Sinkle Kolsky, president of Redevco Management in Miami.

With the heat and humid air these days, this may not be the best time of the year for people to venture outside of the Quizno's sub shop on Broward Boulevard with their lunches, but the chairs and the tables are there, just the same. Places such as Quizno's, the nearby Starbucks coffee shop and the Stromboli's Pizza restaurant at the Fountains Plaza all use so-called "outdoor cafe" areas for their customers who want to enjoy South Florida's open air. But technically -- although the city's code enforcement officers have never cited them -- those open-air cafes were not allowed under the city's zoning laws unless the restaurant provided waiter service outside.

The 2,886-guest Celebrity Silhouette entering service on July 23, will offer guests a new industry feature - an interactive, open-air grilling restaurant called The Lawn Club Grill, Celebrity Cruises announced recently. The 58-seat specialty restaurant aboard the new Solstice-class ship will offer guests the chance to serve as a “Grill Master” to their party by being paired with a Celebrity Cruises chef to assist in the menu preparation. ...

Whether it's under a cozy sunroof outside a pizzeria or on the patio in front of a corner coffee shop, some people like to enjoy the open air with their meal. But city laws place restrictions on open-air cafes or sidewalk eateries where customers can sit and eat outside an indoor restaurant. The law bans any outdoor eating area that does not have full waiter service. There are at least three restaurants that have open-air cafes without waiter service in the city, and in February, City Council members asked their staff to draft a law making them legal.

POMPANO BEACH -- Owners of open-air cafes say they will fight a city attempt to close them earlier, just months after defeating the city`s ban on their music. A proposal coming before the City Commission this month recommends closing certain outdoor bars and restaurants at 11 p.m. during the week and at midnight on weekends, in an effort to reduce noise. "If you want to kill tourism, this is one thing you can do," said Paul Kasden, co-owner of Fisherman`s Wharf, a restaurant and tiki bar that leases its quarters at the municipal pier from the city.

Panembahan Senopati Hospital was designed for 140 patients. Monday it had 1,200. Even so, the wards were nearly empty. No one wanted to stay inside. Instead, the patients lay in rows in the open-air reception area and in the sprawling hospital's exterior corridors. These were survivors of Saturday's central Java earthquake, which measured magnitude 6.3 and killed more than 5,100 as of Monday. Many at the hospital had casts on broken limbs and bandages on cuts, but the psychic wounds they suffered were far greater.

BOCA RATON -- Let it be said that the Boca Raton Symphonic Pops Orchestra did not get rained out Sunday afternoon, despite a drenching downpour that threatened to waterlog the ensemble and its audience during a scheduled open- air Holiday Concert in Sanborn Square. The show went on, although for just under a half-hour, thanks to a brief respite of sunshine, and an abundance of a certain household item not commonly associated with musicians: clothespins. Dozens of clothespins, circulated among Pops performers after the opening number, kept the ensemble`s sheet music from being blown away by high winds that followed the pummelling rain.

BALTIMORE -- Tradition and a touch of innocence, still the essence of baseball, seemed reborn on a cool Opening Day Monday at the first regular- season game played at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Built two blocks from Babe Ruth`s birthplace, baseball`s newest ballpark exudes the character of this blue-collar city and intentionally harks back to old-fashioned ways. Fans found that Opening Day satisfied all their lofty expectations. The crab cakes were tasty. The seats wide and sloped just right.

Some mighty peculiar people take delight in going to the airport for no other reason than to check out the planes. I happen to be one of them. One thing we strange birds do is camp out in an out-of-the-way place and watch planes take off and land. Some of us bring special radios to monitor the pilot chatter. Another enjoyable pastime is driving slowly around the field and spotting the old relics -- airplanes that flew in a previous era, but are now grounded, abandoned, fading. Some of us go to the airport to remember the days when Lockheed Constellations, Convairs 240s and Douglas DC-4s dominated the skies, way back in the 1950s.

The Palm Beach Home Show opens today with optimism as home sales tick upward and confidence in the economy warily grows. At its peak, the annual exhibition at the Palm Beach County Convention Center was drawing 25,000 visitors. That plummeted to 6,000 last fall. And while the number of businesses participating in the semi-annual show has dropped off 20 percent since 2006 to about 250, organizers believe home sales, including foreclosures that may need extra TLC, will increase traffic this year.

Outdoorzy.com is a place to connect with people who share your love for open air and beautiful scenery. The Web site lets you create a profile and connect to others through trip reports, blog posts and groups. Members also can add gear lists and public events to their profiles. Much like a Facebook "wall," you can communicate with members through comments on their profiles. It also provides gear reviews and links to outdoors businesses. MCT

For more than a year, legions of travelers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport have had to cope with wet luggage or delayed trips during rainstorms because officials built a new baggage-handling center for Terminal 4 with only part of a roof and no walls. The airport ignored the advice of its architects and demanded the open-air design to save money. Baggage handlers evacuate when lightning threatens, delaying passenger check-in for carriers in the terminal. Airlines try to shelter suitcases in covered carts, but wind-driven rain pelts the bags as they rotate around carousels on their way between the public side of the terminal and the planes.

For more than a year, legions of travelers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport have had to cope with wet luggage or delayed trips during rainstorms because officials built a new baggage-handling center for Terminal 4 with only part of a roof and no walls. The airport ignored the advice of its architects and demanded the open-air design to save money. Baggage handlers evacuate when lightning threatens, delaying passenger check-in for carriers in the terminal. Airlines try to shelter suitcases in covered carts, but wind-driven rain pelts the bags as they rotate around carousels on their way between the public side of the terminal and the planes.

Gilligan and the Skipper would have felt right at home in Igot's Martiki Bar. Fortunately, you don't need to be shipwrecked and stranded to take pleasure in it. Located on Lake Avenue in the heart of downtown Lake Worth, the tiki bar makes one feel on a holiday in the islands. Thanks to the tropical drinks, you even leave with that vacation glow. Named after Igot the Crab - the mascot at its nearby sister bar, Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar - the tiki hut was opened in response to the no-smoking ban. The bar sells cigarettes for $5 a pack and Plantation cigars for $5-$12.

By David A. Schwartz Forum Publishing Group and Staff Writer Jaclyn Giovis contributed to this report, June 4, 2007

For the first time, Town Center mall is growing beyond its walls. Outside of Talbots and Pottery Barn, about a dozen stores, restaurants and offices will occupy the new Terrace at Town Center, said Sam Hosyn, mall general manager. The Terrace will give shoppers "the option of stepping outside and having that downtown feel," Hosyn said. "It's a trend. It's the hottest thing." That shopping expansion is in addition to a 900-space parking deck and a pedestrian bridge to the second level under construction.

Margaret Zolot is not sure why she is lured to the flea market in Margate three times a week, but she has a theory. "It`s a disease," the Deerfield Beach resident said. "No matter where I go -- needing nothing -- I find something and I love it." On her last trip there, Zolot found a plaque for her front door. Her friend Ida Goldberg found a used lamp. The two women are among an estimated 2,000 bargain hunters who visit the Swap Shop on State Road 7, north of Margate Boulevard. Open-air markets are popular in South Florida, where the warm weather and large population of avid shoppers keep business booming.

Open air malls are gaining favor in South Florida, forcing some aging enclosed malls to add their own outdoor shopping space. A new enclosed mall has not opened in the United States since 2006 and some analysts question whether South Florida will ever see another one. Instead, developers have built a series of outdoor retail centers that shoppers have increasingly embraced. "Indoor malls are becoming dinosaurs and shoppers are seeing this," said Debra Sinkle Kolsky, president of Redevco Management in Miami.

A dusty tomato patch soon will be transformed into a 23-acre shopping, office and residential development in Coconut Creek, the start of the city's downtown of the future. Construction will begin within the next two months on The Promenade at Lyons at the southwest corner of Lyons and Wiles roads. The development will include an open-air mall with about 60 stores and restaurants, up to 125,000 square feet of office space and as many as 456 condos. The residential building could be as many as eight stories, four stories higher than the next tallest building in Coconut Creek.

Florida Atlantic University's Board of Trustees took a conservative approach Tuesday to building an on-campus football stadium, endorsing an open-air venue that could one day have a roof. Despite the urging of football coach Howard Schnellenberger and Athletic Director Craig Angelos, who preferred a more expensive and elaborate proposal for a 40,000-seat domed stadium, the board directed university staff to pursue the "phased project" option at a meeting on FAU's Fort Lauderdale campus.